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Improving your gas mileage day by day MilesGallon.com - Gas Mileage CalculatorFind Out Your Real MPG and Learn How to Improve It How to Save Gas This SummerHere’s a couple of easy ways you can save gas during summer, especially during a hot summer. Park in the shadow and your car will be a lot more comfortable when you’re ready to leave. The reason you’ll save gas is that your air condition will not have to work so hard to cool the car down when get on the road again. You’ll also keep the cars paintwork and tires in better shape and prevent the chocolate you left in the glove compartment from melting. Be careful with the A/C as it is one beast of a gas gulper. Don’t turn the temperature down too much, you’ll just get a cold. Open the doors before you leave and read “Park in the shadow” above. Drive with windows open if you do slow city speeds but remember that the drag from the windows makes them even more wasteful than the A/C at highway speeds. Enjoy the weather instead of using the car. Walk to the corner grocery instead of driving to the supermarket, take the bike to work if it’s not too far, and let the kids use their bikes instead of driving them everywhere. Check the tire pressure all times of the year as this is one of the easiest ways of saving gas. A properly inflated tire can save you up to 5% in gas expenses and an under inflated tire is unsafe and may explode from overheating if stressed enough. Make sure you have a gas cap and it’s not broken as the heat of summer will make the fuel in your tank evaporate a lot faster then in winter. The cap makes sure your hard earned gas dollars are not excaping into the athmosphere. Happy driving, Simon
U.S. Department of Energy Releases 2010 Fuel Economy Guide
It also lists the most efficient vehicles in different categories making this an excellent companion when shopping for a new car. Download the fuel economy guide from fueleconomy.gov
Remember to Turn of the A/CIt’s still summer and some days can be really hot. Remember that as soon as you turn on the A/C you could be loosing as much as 10MPG, the A/C is a real power hog. Do this:
Do this and save some gas during hot summer days! Dedicated to improving your fuel economy, Simon Byholm
Is Your Gas Cap Missing?With the hot summer weather soon here I want to share with you a summer time gas saving tip. It’s one of the tips you can get for free in our email cource on saving gas I must admit that before I started researching fuel economy I had no idea that driving without a gas cap would make any significant difference to my fuel economy, But it does! Loosing your gas cap and not replacing it can cost you up to 15 gallons of gas a year, and even more if you live in a hot climate. With no lid on the gas tank fuel will constantly evaporate from the tank into the air. Poof, gone… Not only will you loose fuel but the extra gas added to the atmosphere will contribute to the greenhouse effect. If you loose our gas cap, immediately go buy a new one from your car dealer or local mechanic. You will pay less for the new cap than for all the fuel you loose without a cap. This technique may give you savings of 3 mpg or more depending on how hot and dry the climate is around you and if you have an additional lid on top of the missing gas cap that prevents some of the leakage. Dedicated to improving you fuel economy, Simon Byholm P.S. To find out your real MPG just use our free gas calculator, or try the metric mileage calculator if you’re from outside the United States.
Save Gas on Your Christmas TripChristmas is soon here and many of us will be traveling to spend the holidays with family or friends. If you are going to take the car you can as well think about how to get the best mileage out of your Chrismas trip… there’s enough bills to pay anyway even if you didn’t have to pay for the gas. To help you I have put together my top 7 Christmas Mileage Tips for saving gas on you Christmas travels. Chrismas Mileage Tip #1: No speeding, no stress Going above 60mph (100km/h) will use considerably more fuel while not getting you anywhere as much faster ahed as you might wish. Plan your trip to begin early enough so you don’t need to panic in case there is problems on the way. You might have to get around a traffic accident or you may get lost in case they have done reconstruction on some major intersection since you last traveled. (See Christmas Mileage Tip Nr 2) It’s also a good idea to be carefull on the roads around Christmas as an accident will certainly ruin your celebrations. Chrismas Mileage Tip #2: Plan Your Route One of the secrets to saving fuel on long trips is of cource to take the shortest route while still avoiding the smallest roads where you can’t keep your schedule. First of all plan the shortest route you could take using the major highways. It’s usually easy to find your way from A to B on the highway. Then consider you skills with map or GPS and see if you can find a shorter route by using smaller rural roads for shortcuts. Do not only measure the length of the route. Also favor road with speed limits of 50 to 60mph with no known road contruction work going on and with less traffic. Also avoid entering a major city on a smaller road, you will easily get lost. Chrismas Mileage Tip #3: Make a Good Schedule Don’t just go. Plan when well in advance what day to gom what time to go and when you will be at different waypoints on your route. This way you can avoid rush hour traffic on certain parts of your trip, possibly saving your hours of stress and gallons of fuel. Avoid getting near any major city during rush hour, if you notice you will you can allways taka break and a meal at that point to adjust your schedule. If you’re alone or if your family can stand it you can drive during the night hours to avoid other traffic that could force your to drive less economically. Chrismas Mileage Tip #4: Update your Maps And GPS Make sure you have a recent map in case they have changed roads or intersections and get the latest map updates for your GPS unit. Especially if you follow the directions from your GPS it could take you inte trouble and a longer trip in case the roads has changed. If your GPS jave real time traffic information it can also inform you of road work and accidents so your can take the quickest route around bottlenecks. Chrismas Mileage Tip #5: Check Tire Pressure and Fluids Having too low tire pressure will decrease your gas mileage with up to 5mpg depending on your vehicle. Make sure to check and fill your tires before going on a longer Christmas trip and you could save some gas for Santa. Also check the other fluids, like the oil level, coolant level and cleaning fluid for the windows. You won’t save much gas by doing this but you might save your engine and make sure you have a peacefull Christmas. Chrismas Mileage Tip #6: No Roof Racks, Ski Boxes or Trailers Anything you attach to the outside of your car will increase aerodynamic drag and also fuel consumption. If you don’t need them for your trip, make sure to remove any roof rack or ski boxes before you go, it can make a difference of several mpg. Towing a trailer will also make your car use a lot more fuel per mile so avoid it at all cost, and if you have to choose a ski box is better than a big trailer. Chrismas Mileage Tip #7: Fill up Where It’s Cheap If you’re going to drive some considerable distance you can plan in advance where to fill up by using an online service like gasbuddy. They have gas prices for every state in the USA and Canada and if you travel through several states the price difference can be huge between different locations. Just don’t deviate from your planned route to save a few cents, find a gas station along your route and fill up well before the tank is empty to make sure you’re not forced to take anything they have. Tools for Planning Your Trip To get an estimate of how much fuel is going to be needed you can use this trip gas mileage calculator, to find the best gas prices in the US and Canada go to gasbuddy and finally you can use this tool to find the best tire pressure for your vehicle. If you have additional tips on how to save gas during Christmas please add it in a comment to this blog post so everyone can benefit from your knowledge. Hava a Merry Christmas and save a lot of gas on your trip, Simon Byholm
Save Gas By Preparing Your TakeoffI just read this article at Daily Fuel Economy Tip about little things you can do before starting your car to avoid idling. Here’s the list with some additions of my own: Over at the Daily Fuel Economy Tip they talk about saving 10-30 seconds of idling. I wouldn’t go through a lot of pains for just 30 seconds myself as I have a diesel that uses very little fuel at idle and the previous owner of the car recommended to idle for 30 seconds to let the turbo get lubrication before taking off. If you have a gas car on the other hand, or if you idle for minutes waiting for a friend or spouse to join you, there is money to be had by not starting before all passengers are on board and ready to go. I think I should make an idle savings calculator to complement the gas mileage calculator. What do you think? Post a comment with your ideas! Dedicatied to improving your fuel economy, Simon Byholm
How To Prepare Your Car For WinterThe guys over at AutoAnything was kind enough to send me some tips on how to prepare your car for winter: Tip 1: Tip 2: This is a tip from us at MilesGallon.com: Remember to put on your snow tires before it gets slippery in case you live in an area with freezing winter weather. And finally a tip from one of our newsletter subscibers: Check the status of the traffic light far in advance and slow down in case you see you’ll have to stop anyway. This will help you in two ways: 1. In case you finally have to stop you got off the accelerator earlier thus you used less fuel. 2. Often if you slow down the status of the light will change before you reach it, thus saving your from a full stop. This saves even more fuel as you will not have to accelerate from a standstill. Dedicated to improving your fuel economy, Simon Byholm
Save Gas In Hot and Cold WeatherThis is an article I just wrote. It is going to be part of the fuel saving lessons you can via email at the Gas Mileage Calculator page. It’s about some of the ways you can save gas when it’s really hot or when it’s freezing temperatures. Save Gas When It’s HOT or COLD Did you know that when it’s really hot in summer and when Really Hot Weather, And How to Save The number #1 gas thief in summer is the air condition. It’s Too bad it’s not as easy as just turning the AC off. Ok, The problem is what you do after you turn the A/C off, The problems with the windows is that driving above 30mph This means if you go faster than 30mph it’s better to use If it’s really hot you might want to use the A/C even You can still save by setting the indoor temperature a bit It’s also a good way to prevent getting a summer cold to not Now to a completely different aspect of hot weather, make sure This is essential as the car will get extremely hot when left Another thin you can do to prevent loosing fuel is to fill up There is two reasons for this. One is the same as above, fuel Easy, fill up before the sun goes up. Or at least before it Now to Cold Weather, Freezing Weather The colder it is the more you can save. Not because of Step one: Get a block heater. That’s important both for your fuel economy and for the The block heater uses electricity from the mains to A cold engine will not be able to burn fuel efficiently, The cold engine also doesn’t get lubricated well enough, That was to say you have a double benefit, even a triple Another thing, if you use winter/snow tires, in most Make sure you switch to summer tires as soon as it’s WHERE TO GET AN ENGINE HEATER If you are one of our US readers and need an engine It’s a magnetic heater that you can easily attach Kats 200W Magnetic Heater from Amazon Use that link to see the heater. It can also be used Dedicated to improving your fuel economy, Simon Byholm Where I live in Finland almost every car has a block heater installed. If you don’t have a block heater in the coldest weeks in February your car might not start. And even if it does start it will be smoking, without power and a real pain to drive until it warms up. If you have story to tell about how you save gas in hot and cold weather just leave a comment here below this post.
Fuel Economy of Tonneau Covers QuestionedYou may have heard that you can improve the mpg of your truck by covering the truck bed with a tonneau cover. I just read that SEMA has done some research on the effect of truck bed covers on the aerodynamics and it seems they found out that covering the bed on your truck will reduce drag by 4.2%–7.8%, effectively reducing the amount of fuel you have to use to overcome air resistance. I read a post about this research over at Thundra Headquarters where the admin thinks the fuel savings are too small to warrant the considerable cost of buying a new tonno. Instinctively I don’t agree as there is other uses for a bed cover than just to save fuel I was also qurious if the calculations are true, so I did some of my own. The main thing to consider here is that the tonno only improves the aerodynamics to a noticeable degree when you drive at highway speed. And not all of the fuel is used to push air, some is also used to overcome rolling resistance. I will calculate with a 3% fuel saving on a 20mpg truck, doing a 20mile highway commute every day making it a total of 50miles per day with off work driving. I will also use a 6 day week to account for other than commute driving. 20mpg is 0.05 gallons per mile. 3% of this is 0.0015 gallons saved for every mile you drive. The total miles in a year is 50 miles x 6 days x 50 weeks in a year. This makes for 15000 miles a year with 0.0015 gallons of gas saved for every mile, thus 22.5 gallons saved. With a gas price of $3 per gallon this would make a total saving of $67.5 per year with the tonno cover comared to driving without one, not bad. Lets say you own you tonneau for 5 years, you will save $337.5 over this period. What can I say, you won’t be able to pay for more than the most basic truck bed cover with the gas saved, but then again don’t you wan’t to have a cover? There’s so many other reasons to get a tonneau cover for your truck than just to save gas. It will keep your stuff dry when driving in the rain, it will keep your stuff clean when driving in the dust. It will keep you light stuff from flying away when you drive on the highway. It will also prevent you stuff from walking away when you stop in the city and if you get one that you can lock it will also prevent you stuff from walking away at night, when parked in the open. With all these reasons to get a cover, isn’t it great that the gas savings of the tonno itself will pay for most of it? Just remember that you get the most savings if you drive highway miles, if you are only driving around town doing street speed you won’t save much. If when reading this you feel like you got a good reason to go get a new tonneau cover for your pickup truck, I have listed some reasonably priced tonnos from a US dealer here: How to Save Gas With A Tonneau Truckbed Cover  And always remember, if you need to check your gas mileage the mpg calculator is over at the main page.
Sparks of wisdom from our gas saving bag of tricksIt’s not complicated to save gas, you don’t need any fancy vortex converters or gas saving devices. Neither do you need magnetic energy boosters for your fuel line. Most of these are the modern version of snake oil. With this being the first post in the blog I’m going to give you a top three gas saving checklist. 1. Check that you have proper air pressure in your tires 2. Remove roof racks, bicycle racks, fancy extra lights if you don’t really need them, unused antennas. They all makes the aerodynamics of your car bad and increases fuel consumption. 3. Drive less if you can. Walk or use the bike on short local trips. Do more on one trip to town and cancel the other. All these can significantly reduce your gas costs and are easy to do. Remember we have the gas mileage calculator on the main page where you can check your mpg while working on improving it. Simon
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Every year the U.S. Department of Energy releases a Fuel Economy Guide. The guide has some information about how to drive efficiently and fuel economy in general, but more useful in this case is that they list almost all new vehicles sold in the US with the fuel economy ration MPG for city and highway use.